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Juli is fine. He knows that, he does. Brie (Brie, like the cheese. B for Bagon, duh) didn't do anything wrong. She's been with Juliana since that first Treasure Hunt. Arven remembers when the dragon was just a fat little Shelgon waddling behind them in the scrublands outside of Alfornada. Brie loves Juli.
There's a little voice in the back of his head that sounds annoyingly like Penny saying that it was an accident, it could have happened to anyone. Arven buries his head in his hands. He needs to take Juli’s team to the Pokémon Center. He needs to call Penny and Nemona and have them send someone down to check on the Lighthouse. He takes a deep, shuddering breath and straightens up. He needs a cigarette.
Letting go of Juliana’s hand is harder than it should be. The heartbeat monitor she’s hooked up to beeps a steady rhythm above her head. The nurses said she’d be out for a while anyway; he wouldn’t leave her if he thought there was a chance she may wake up alone.
Arven makes his way through the dimly lit hospital. It takes conscious effort on his part to walk at a normal pace—between the lighting and the maze of corridors he has to navigate, he's claustrophobic and on edge. He shoves the heavy doors open with more force than is strictly necessary. He’s not proud of it, but he feels a vicious surge of satisfaction when they slam shut behind him.
He leans against the wall of the hospital building and lights up, inhaling deeply. The smoke burns through his lungs. He resists he urge to hold his breath. He exhales slowly, counting to five. He feels a little better. The girls will give him shit about this later; he’s supposed to be quitting. Tonight he doesn’t care.
Pulling out his phone, he takes another drag. His hand hovers over his mother-in-law’s smiling face. The clock on the screen reads 9:40pm. He should call Juliana’s mom. She would want to know what’s going on, no matter what time of day or night. But—it’s late. Maria is in Galar for the summer visiting some old school friends. He doesn’t want to ruin her vacation. Besides, he doesn’t want to freak her out right now when there’s nothing to be done but wait for Juli to come to.
He swipes over to his messaging app instead, opening up the “Familia” group chat. “You two still up?” he taps. He shoves the phone back in his pocket instead of waiting for an answer, focusing his attention on the slow rhythm of smoking his cigarette. In..out. In...out. Smoke curls lazily in front of him, trailing upwards before it disappears. It’s a beautiful night, which makes Arven irrationally angry.
He lets his cigarette butt drop to the ground, crushing it beneath his foot for good measure. He checks his phone again. No new messages in the group chat. He suppresses a flare of irritation. The messages are unread, they’re not ignoring him. He’s confident one of them would pick up if he called, but the thought of trying to explain the situation out loud makes him vaguely nauseous.
“Arven!” Nemona’s voice rings through the night. His head snaps toward the sound and his knees almost buckle at the sight of their friends clambering out of a Flying Taxi. “Arven! We came as soon as we saw—is Juliana okay?”
By the time Nemona has finished her question, she and Penny are standing in front of him. Nemona’s eyes are wide, frantically searching his. “Nemo? Pen? Yeah she’s—she’s upstairs. What are you doing here? What do you mean you saw?
“You were on the news,” Penny says. “Someone on the ground saw a wild Garchomp go at a Salamence in midair and started filming. The guy didn’t even realize there was a trainer involved until she fell.” Arven flinches.
“We saw the video online and recognized Miraidon when he caught her,” Penny continues. “I figured out she was here by tracing the location on her phone. We came as soon as we could.”
Arven huffs a laugh in spite of himself. Of course his dumb, brilliant friend would do that instead of just texting him. Penny glares at him without heat. “I assumed, correctly, that you’d be busy here with your wife,” she says.
Arven doesn’t bother pointing out the flaws in her logic. “You’re here now, which is what matters,” he says. “Let me show you where she is, I was just about to head back up anyway.”
~~~~~
Nemona gasps when she sees Juliana in the hospital bed. Arven knows how she feels—stepping into the room after Juli had been moved out of surgical recovery had been a shock. His wife is always moving, a tiny tornado of flailing limbs and ringing laughter. Even in sleep she tosses and turns and talks. Her deathly stillness is unnerving.
He steps up beside her and wraps an arm around her shoulders. She leans into him easily. From Nemona’s other side, he can feel Penny’s hand resting on the small of his back. Something loosens in his chest at the contact. For the first time since he saw the Garchomp rush Juliana and Brie, he feels like he can breathe.
After a long moment watching her chest rise and fall, he pulls away from Penny and Nemona and returns to the seat he’d claimed by the bed. The girls settle in on Juliana’s other side. Nemona holds Juli’s free hand in one of her own. The other is clenched around Penny’s in a white-knuckle grip. “What happened?” she asks.
Arven pinches the bridge of his nose. “They were doing flight training. Juli didn’t have any clients scheduled for today so we went to the auction at Porto Marinada. On the way back she wanted to take advantage of the weather to do some precision agility training with Brie.” He snorts. “She argued with me about wearing a helmet. She said she didn’t like having her vision restricted in the air.”
The irony isn’t lost on him: the helmet saved her life, but she wouldn’t have fallen in the first place if she’d been able to see the Garchomp approaching from her left. He swallows hard and continues, “I was on the ground setting up a picnic. Miraidon must have heard something, or—” he shakes his head. “I don’t know what happened. All I know is one minute he was in his ball and I was making sandwiches, and the next I was on the ground and he was out and bolting towards something. He managed to catch her somehow.”
“She must have been hit head on-though, she was just…” he feels his throat closing up and focuses on breathing through his nose. “Her arm is broken pretty badly, and whatever the Garchomp hit them with cut her up pretty good. Brie was in rough shape too, she went on a rampage when Juli fell. I’ve never seen anything like it, she took out the Garchomp with one hit. I honestly don’t know how I managed to get her back in her ball.”
He grimaces. “I was so focused on taking care of Juli that I haven’t had time to check on her.” He braces himself for Nemona’s scolding, but his oldest friend is silent.
“You made the right call,” Penny says, “and we’re here to help. What do you need from us?”
It takes every ounce of Arven’s rapidly fraying self control not to sob at the gentleness in Penny’s tone. Penny is a lot of things: kind, smart, funny, loyal. Penny is not a gentle woman. He’s profoundly grateful for her as he rattles off the list of tasks he’d come up with earlier. She nods as he speaks, tapping away at her phone.
“Alright, done. I’ve sent out an email to all her clients letting them know that Juli has had an emergency and that Nemona will be covering the Lighthouse in her absence. Nemo’s already there twice a week for battle training anyway, but I’ve put my contact down to coordinate alternatives for anyone who isn’t comfortable with a substitute.
“I’ll take Juli’s team to the Pokémon Center now, and pick up something to eat.” She stares pointedly at him. “I’ll assume the last thing you had was breakfast this morning and you’ve been running on cigarettes and adrenaline since then. You’ll thank me for not judging you tonight.”
Arven grins at her. “Thanks, Pen-Pen.”
Penny stands, stretching dramatically before bending down to drop a kiss on the top of Nemona’s head. “I’ll be back. You two have some bro-time or whatever it is you do when Juli and I aren’t around.”
Nemona makes a scandalized face before sticking her tongue out at Penny and blowing a raspberry. Penny laughs as she crosses the room. When she gets to the door, she pauses and turns to face Arven again. “Don’t get in your head about this. It was a total freak accident, it could have happened to anyone. She’s safe.”
Penny’s out the door before Arven can respond.
For a long while after that, the room is silent except for the regular beep, beep of Juliana’s heart monitor. Nemona keeps opening and closing her mouth, as if she wants to say something but keeps deciding against it. It’s driving Arven crazy.
“Okay, spit it out,” he finally says. Nemona gapes at him. “I know that look, Nemona. You’ve been making that same face since we were six years old playing tag with Maschiff on the beach. What is it you want to say?”
Nemona flushes, but meets his gaze squarely. “I want to say that you can talk to me, if you want. She’s my best friend, but you’re my oldest friend. I remember what it was like before.”
Arven’s eyes well up and he doesn’t have the energy to do anything about it. “It was so awful, Nemo,” he says quietly. “It slammed into both of them and I saw her go flying through the air and I couldn’t do anything. I thought I was going to be alone again.”
A rustle of fabric later and Nemona has wrapped her arms around him from behind. He allows his head to fall back against her shoulder. It feels good to let someone else take his weight. “I get it,” Nemona says quietly. Her arms tighten around him as he finally allows himself to fall apart.
~~~~~
Arven wakes to the light scratch of fingernails against his scalp. “Mmm,” he mumbles. “Two more minutes, Juli—” he bolts upright, his lower back twinging in protest. “Juli!”
He must have fallen asleep at some point during his nighttime vigil. Light streams through the open curtains. “Good morning, sunshine,” Juliana says tiredly. She looks exhausted. Her gaze is unfocused—unsurprising, given the concussion. Vivid bruises bloom across her face. Her hair is wild, little wispy curls springing up like tall grass between layers of bandaging. “Nemo and Penny brought you breakfast.” She pouts a little. “The nurse says I’m not allowed to have real food yet.”
Sure enough, small flower arrangement has appeared on the table next to him, along with a massive iced coffee and a bag of pastries from a local bakery. “Why didn’t anyone tell me you were awake?”
“I told them to let you sleep. They went to…” she pauses, clearly working to remember something. “I don’t remember where they went. Somewhere. They’ll be back. Can I have a sip of your coffee?”
“No,” he replies. “Coffee is for people who don’t have concussions and a morphine drip.”
She tries to reach for him and hisses as the movement tugs on the IV embedded in her forearm. “Fuck,” she says. Arven isn’t sure if she’s registered the cast on her other arm yet.
“Fuck,” he agrees, reaching for her hand and pulling it towards him. He presses a kiss to her palm. “I’m glad you woke up.”
She yawns loudly. “I had weird dreams,” she says. “I think I fell? My head feels heavy.” He’s not sure how long Juli has been awake, but she’s struggling to keep her eyes open.
“You fell, but we caught you.” He lets go of her hand and stands up, stretching until his back cracks. “Go back to sleep, pequeña.” He stoops to kiss her cheek, mindful of the bandages and bruises. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Her eyes flutter closed. In the bright light of day, now that the uncertainty has passed, he feels anger at her recklessness once again simmering under his skin. They’ll fight about it later, he’s sure. For now, Juliana is alive, and only a little broken. It’s enough.